The bombs continue to drop on Gaza, everyday more babies killed. Everyone is either practicing extreme distraction and busyness, or absolutely pummeled by grief and rage. If I give myself enough space and resource, I manage to channel some of that grief and rage into reflection, and gestures toward healing deep intergenerational wounds.
Born in 1963, I grew up steeped in systemic racism. Whether I was in Korea, Hawai`i, or New York, it was ever present. Of course I did not recognize it, nor could I name it. My immigrant parents, seeking better lives for themselves and their children, not once pointed it out. Nevertheless it permeated all institutions around me and like everyone else around me, I internalized it without realizing it.
It took me decades to see it, and learn the larger histories of coloniality and the intersecting issues of sexism, classism, ableism, and more. Then I had to go through the process of denial, confusion, rage, and finally uproot my internalized racist. Can I claim to have dismantled it completely? It’s hard to demonstrate my “correctness” when all around me coloniality still rages on, and while my subsistence entails stolen land, destructive mining in Congo, and climate disaster. But I have only just turned 60 years old, I have 3 grandchildren, and I dare not give up!
I moved to Detroit, Michigan in 2013, to take my radicalism to the next level. At that point, Detroiters were resisting a huge corporate takeover. Key neighborhoods were targeted for extreme gentrification geared toward attracting white folks with money, and displacing the generations of Black families that had been fiercely holding it down, through the rebellions, crack epidemic, foreclosure crises, and much more. Meanwhile, Detroit residents were being deprived of basic services and maintenance, including street lights, water, infrastructure updates, and even security. Sound familiar? Many were living almost like refugees in their own city, in their own nation.
When I moved into the near east side of Detroit, not only did I have to overcome the racism and anti-Blackness I had unconsciously internalized, my neighbors had to come to terms with me. Who the fuck is this “Chinese lady”? What does she want? It took months and years to build relations, friendships, and trust. I had to repeatedly demonstrate my solidarity, and prove I wasn’t a gentrifier coming to displace anyone. I had to talk to neighbors, go to block club meetings, teach free yoga classes, host potlucks, and more. My roommates and I would drive into the suburbs on Sundays to go dumpster diving at Trader Joe’s and bring back discarded flower bouquets, along with a ton of still-good food to share with neighbors. Some of my neighbors started to refer to me as the flower lady because I would bring them bouquets.
Meanwhile I’m writing this on Day 30 of the 2023 War on Gaza. More than 10,000 Gazans have been killed by bombs, and nearly half are children. 30,000 tons of explosives have been dropped, more than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. While global citizens are pouring out in droves into the streets to demand an immediate ceasefire, the USA and Israeli governments have yet to comply. I’ve been posting on social media daily, and have my share of detractors insisting that the bombing, is in fact, the only response possible, and that if thousands of innocent civilians are dying, Hamas is to blame.
Those insisting that the bombing and killing must continue are speaking from trauma, as survivors, personally and intergenerationally. Some feel absolutely certain that Israelis will be decimated if Hamas is not destroyed, no matter how many others must die. There is no reasoning when someone is in this traumatized place; it’s not neurologically possible. If this trauma, along with grief and rage, remain untended for decades, it becomes culture, and the possibilities for healing seem ever more distant.
In the midst of this devastation, I discovered a small gem of a podcast: “Disillusioned,” by Israeli Yahav Erez. Erez interviews Israeli Jews who have somehow come to reject Zionism. Each intimate conversation delves into their upbringing, life events, and the transformation of their consciousness over years. Each story is a story of decolonization, shedding former beliefs and structures, and striving to create new stories of healing and equity.
What is the incentive for those with land to give up or change anything? All my life I had lived pretty much in middle class comfort. Why would I give even a shred of that up? My parents had sacrificed so much to provide that security and safety for us kids.
But it turns out my middle class life was not true security or safety, just as life in Israel is not safe. Disparity foments violence. It’s inevitable. And apartheid is the most extreme form of government-sanctioned disparity. At some point the pressure cooker will explode.
One Israeli Jew on “Disillusioned” described growing up in a settlement in East Jerusalem where, literally 15 meters away, her Palestinian neighbors led lives completely segregated from her. They lacked municipal services like garbage disposal, and resorted to burning their trash. Similarly, it’s been shocking for me to see stylish, colorful Tel Aviv on the news, in contrast to the crowded concentration camps of Gaza, now crumbled to gray ash and rubble.
One person on the Disillusioned podcast describes how he wanted to meet Palestinians, and build friendships and solidarity, but was frustrated to find there were no avenues to do so. Finally he realized he had to overcome his internalized fear of the Palestinian West Bank, that he had grown up with, to venture forth on his own. He describes his journey of shedding his identity, learning to be vulnerable, and realizing “If I wanted to truly meet people in an honest way, I had to shed fears I had.” He noticed that “when fears disappear, the wounds start to heal.”
This is where most of us are stuck. We cling to our identities, and surround ourselves with those like us, out of fear. Some of it may feel quite justified, and borne of generations of harm. And yet, can we open ourselves to what is possible? Otherwise, how will the wounds heal?
The Palestinians I know only want equal rights. “From the river to the sea” is not a slogan for the extermination of Jews, but rather for the opportunity to live side by side with everyone, with no check points, no apartheid, and freedom of movement throughout the one-state region. Israeli apartheid is all too reminiscent of Jim Crow laws, which followed slavery in the USA,
out of fear that Black folks would vengefully decimate the white
population. But it never happened, because Black folks just wanted to be
free, to have equal rights.
Can we hold space for one another to air out the wounds? Can we lovingly tend them and cleanse them? Can we fathom the possibility of healing? I'd like to close with the most potent message I've seen today:
We can be strong and tender. We can be fierce and compassionate. We can be unwavering in our support for those suffering most, while holding space for each of us to heal our trauma. All of us heal, or none of us heal. Liberation cannot come at the expense of another. We must free each other, from the river to the sea.
